Dustin Volz reports: The White House on Thursday named a retired U.S. Air Force brigadier general as the government’s first federal cyber security chief, a position announced eight months ago that is intended to improve defenses against hackers. Gregory Touhill’s job will be to protect government networks and critical infrastructure from cyber threats as federal chief…
Category: Government Sector
Two members of “Crackas with Attitude” arrested in North Carolina
ALEXANDRIA, Va. – Andrew Otto Boggs, aka “INCURSIO,” 22, of North Wilkesboro, North Carolina, and Justin Gray Liverman, aka “D3F4ULT,” 24, of Morehead City, North Carolina, were arrested today on charges related to their alleged roles in the computer hacking of several senior U.S. government officials and U.S. government computer systems. According to charging documents…
Turkish hacker group says it was behind airport cyber attack
The Local reports: Austrian police are investigating whether a Turkish nationalist group was behind a failed cyber attack on Vienna airport last week. Hackers attempted to penetrate the airport’s computer systems but were prevented from doing so. In a tweet, the hacker group “Aslan Neferler Tim” or “Lion Soldiers Team” says it launched the attack…
Seattle’s New Utility Billing System Experiences Privacy Breakdown
Mike Lindblom reports: Seattle’s new billing system for utilities, already afflicted by delays and cost overruns, launched Monday morning with a data flaw that sent 3,041 customers a link to other customers’ bills, including their names, addresses and energy or water use. Along with the privacy breakdown, the city sent six to 12 redundant email notices…
DHS Exposes Thousands of Individuals’ Private Information — Including Feds, Golfers and Priests
Eric Katz reports: Customs and Border Protection released the personally identifiable information, including Social Security numbers, of thousands of individuals to dozens of federal agencies during an investigation of cheating on polygraph tests. CBP violated some aspects of the Privacy Act in distributing the information across government, the Homeland Security Department’s inspector general found in…
U.S. personnel management hack preventable, congressional probe finds
Dustin Volz reports: The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) did not follow rudimentary cyber security recommendations that could have mitigated or even prevented major attacks that compromised sensitive data belonging to more than 22 million people, a congressional investigation being released on Wednesday has found. Two breaches at the federal agency detected in 2014…